Elusive clean elections

A new study purports to show that New Jersey's clean-elections program isn't doing what it was designed to do: keep special interests with deep pockets away from campaigns.

Yes, candidates who adhered to so-called clean-elections finance rules received small contributions, but the bulk of that money came from members of the same special interests that have been heavily involved in the past, the study found.

The results showed those in the state teachers' union, pro- and anti-abortion groups, government-employee unions and the National Rifle Association were represented in significant numbers on donor lists.

The survey was done by the Center for Competitive Politics, a Washington think tank opposed to taxpayer-funded elections, which then -- no surprise here -- said the findings strengthened the argument against using public money for political campaigns.

But that's only one view. Another would be that people who belong to such groups tend to be more politically active and more likely to contribute to campaigns. Either way, the impact is similar: Candidates know who supports them and what their interests are.

We have long maintained that the state's clean-elections program needs revising, but our concerns are not those of the center. Nor are we bothered by the funding requirements that say a candidate must raise $10 contributions from 400 people to be eligible for state money. To get public funding, candidates agree to limit spending to what the state provides. The maximum last year was $526,375.

Cleaning up elections will take much more than that. An effective program must control the ability of outside -- supposedly independent -- groups to spend unlimited sums to influence elections.

It's also crucial to bar all contributions from companies doing government business, place strict limits on personal donations and eliminate the political action committees controlled by Senate and Assembly leaders who set the legislative agenda. In addition, truly clean elections require extending public financing to primaries and to all 120 legislative seats -- not just the nine in the program last year. But that would cost millions.

Politicians and the public have to determine whether the price is prohibitive and whether, in the end, public financing of all campaigns would really make a difference.